The benefits of intact biological families were emphasized on a "Building a Marriage Culture" panel at the National Review Institute's 2013 Summit, "The Future of Conservatism." One of the panelists, Doug Mainwaring, spoke of his personal experience as a gay man who came to realize that his own children need both a mother and a father.
"For a long time I thought, if I could just find the right partner, we could raise my kids together, but it became increasingly apparent to me, even if I found somebody else exactly like me, who loved my kids as much as I do, there would still be a gaping hole in their lives because they need a mom," Mainwaring, co-founder of National Capital Tea Party Patriots, said.
Mainwaring is now living with his ex-wife so they can co-parent their two teenaged sons.
"I don't want to see children being engineered for same-sex couples where there is either a mom missing or a dad missing," Mainwaring explained. "Somebody needs to stand up for the rights and needs of children in an age when the selfishness of adults seems to be trumping those rights."
Mainwaring receives many surprised reactions when he explains that he is both gay and a conservative. Someone asked him once, "You're gay, how can you be a conservative?"
The audience laughed and clapped as he recalled his reply: "You're an adult, you have children, how can you be a liberal?"
17 Comments
NOM, speaking of which, please don't hesitate to post the video of that particular session at the NRO Summit, if you can. I haven't been able to find the video, but maybe it's not available to anyone.
Kudos to Mr. Mainwaring. He has a conscience, puts the needs of children above the desires of adults.
Meanwhile: Florida judge approves birth certificate listing three parents
MIAMI - A Florida judge has approved the adoption of a 22-month-old baby girl that will list three people as parents on her birth certificate -- a married lesbian couple and a gay man.
The decision ends a two-year paternity fight between the couple and a friend of the women who donated his sperm to father the child but later sought a larger role in the girl's life.
The ruling means the child's birth certificate will include a biological father and both women as parents in an unusual arrangement approved recently by a Miami-Dade Circuit Court judge.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/07/16889720-florida-judge-approves-birth-certificate-listing-three-parents?lite
So I guess you plan on making a proposal to take children away from single parents and gay couples and give them to mom and dad parents? If this is important enough to keep gays from marrying we musn't wait.
Hmm.. didn't see his statement saying that Herb.
WOW!!!---a gay man living with his ex-wife to co-parent their children----super duper healthy arrangement for everyone! !!! I am sure their children will be well adjusted and so eternally grateful when they are adults!!!!
If a child can have more than two parents, flanoggin, why can't an adult have more than two spouses? Why wouldn't this decision be used as precedent to promote polygamy for polyamorous groups?
And what if this "married" lesbian couple "divorces" and the non genetic "mother" wants custody of the child? Bad enough that kids have to be shuttled between the homes of the divorced mother and father, but can you imagine having to do the same with three parents?
This ruling only promotes confusion, not family stability - all for the sake of accommodating the wants and desires of adults over the needs and upbringing of children.
And besides, isn't SS"M" illegal in Florida anyway? And would that same judge had made the same decision for a married man and woman who used another man as a sperm doner? If not, then how can homosexual couples and heterosexual couples be considered exactly the same?
When Doug Mainwaring, NOM's poster child for self-loathing homosexuals, proposes that adoption by single people be made illegal, get back to me.
Son of Adam---you do realize that children of divorced straight couples who remarry again and again and again have several parents, step-parents, etc. How does this differ? All children have a biological mother and father. That is a fact. I am confused about the polygamy issue---but I am confused by many of your posts. MAy God bless you and have a nice weekend.
Mother plus father plus children is the ideal. Some children don't have this. An adoptive family that models the ideal is the next best thing for children.
The opposition wants to use the exceptions as an excuse to abandon the ideal. Once we abandon the ideal then anything goes. It opens the door to the normalization of the buying, selling and trading of human gametes for the purpose of manufacturing children with the premeditated intention of depriving them of their rightful parents.
Like all arguments in favor of pseudo-marriage, the "some children don't have a mother and father so we should abandon this ideal" argument fails to withstand scrutiny. Mr. Mainwaring appears to understand this. I doubt the average pseudo-marriage advocate has even scrutinized their own slogans, choosing instead to mindlessly repeat what they've been programmed to say.
"you do realize that children of divorced straight couples who remarry again and again and again have several parents, step-parents, etc. How does this differ?"
Those kind of situations are hardly the ideal for raising children. Ever since the establishment of no fault divorce, however, such environments have become more and more commonplace, all at the cost of the well being of children in favor of the wants and desires of adults.
Everyone should start to realize that not all children will be raised ideally....there's no need to mope about it.
One can be "gay" and conservative just like ANY one, and actually every one Christian IS a sinner AND loved by Jesus Lord. I am the same way. I struggle with homosexuality; but why should I use that as a claim for false righteousness when my desire is to please The Lord? All of us are called to cut off, or rather to OFFER our personal thorn in the flesh to Jesus. We all have sin to face and Jesus asks us to give it to Him. Society does not teach this type of discipline and most homosexual strugglers buy into the falsity that they have a right to impinge their orientation into the laws of marriage. It is a ridiculous notion fueled by the blinding of being oriented in such a manner. And I admit, having homosexual desire IS a deeply ingrained difficulty. It is HARD, but we are called to sacrifice the flesh. We all have sin to deal with. The Christian strives to sacrifice the self, instead of raising a fist for the self as our society teaches.
Its about what names go on the birth certificate.
Do you think its OK for any number of names to be added to a birth certificate based on the number of partners one has during the life of the child?
"Everyone should start to realize that not all children will be raised ideally....there's no need to mope about it."
Who's moping? This is about creating the best raising environment for our children.
The SSM advocate is the racist analogue and there are comments by SSMers here that reinforces the analogy.
flanoggin's scoffs: "a gay man living with his ex-wife to co-parent their children----super duper healthy arrangement for everyone!"
Note that gay was no impediment to "a gay man" getting married under the man-woman criterion of marriage.
Note that the scoffing is entirely based on stereotyping. If gay identity is race-like, then, the scoffer suggests that this particular gay man, Mainwaring, is like an 'uncle tom'. Attack the person, because what else has the racist-like flanoggin got?
Jeanette Exner rushes in to invoke the racist-like notion of betrayal group identity purity: "poster child for self-loathing homosexuals".
Readers might note the stereotyping is emblematic of those comments; and how group identity supposedly owns the individual.
The SSMers insist that gay is a race-like identity group. They are all-too ready to demonstrate their racist-like favoritism of their "race" while cracking the whip against any dissenters -- especially those who stand against the bigoted ways and means used to enforce groupthink.